West Ham: Boleyn Ground goodbye is painful but Hammers can forge bright future at Olympic Stadium

After 112 years the bubbles will blow for the last time at the Boleyn Ground on Tuesday 10 May, as West Ham host Manchester United in the final Premier League home game of this season. The club's 2,398th match at Upton Park is bound to be an emotionally-charged occasion; a final farewell to a stadium that for the club's fans, including myself, has always been home.

Extra stewards are reportedly being brought in to stop supporters, some of whom would have sat for years and years in the same spot as season ticket holders, from taking their seats with them.

You can understand why. For many a fan, the Boleyn Ground is West Ham United; and despite the promise of a shiny new stadium in Stratford being mainly paid for by the taxpayer, something on Tuesday night will be irrevocably lost.

The Boleyn Ground is a sporting cathedral like no other. An old-fashioned stadium tucked away in an unfashionable corner of east London. Going past it on an ordinary day it would appear nondescript. But on matchday, it is impossible to escape the infectious atmosphere down Green Street as fans hustle and bustle their way about, chow down their pie and mash and purchase their copy of Over Land And Sea before making their way into the ground.

And once inside the stadium itself the atmosphere becomes electric. The famous rendition of "I'm forever blowing bubbles" before each match still makes my spine tingle every time. Like an echo chamber, all the noise, the energy, the emotion from the supporters reverberates around the stadium to create a pulsating experience.

As a football fan I've seen matches around the world, from the Nou Camp to the Maracanã, but I can confidently say without bias that you cannot beat the atmosphere you get within the Boleyn Ground. Whilst I find most of what comes out of the mouth of former Fifa president Sepp Blatter repugnant, I have to agree with him when he heralded West Ham's stadium as the second most atmospheric ground in the world and "a must for football romantics".

All of this and more is why I feel the experience of moving to the Olympic Stadium is painful, but necessary. Whilst I certainly have grievances about leaving, I can completely understand why club owners David Gold and Sullivan have taken the decision. The Boleyn was a great stadium for the past 112 years, but we need a new ground for the 21st century.

The Olympic Stadium, just a stone's-throw away in Stratford, will provide increased capacity, better transport links and improved hospitality facilities, a venue that will generate increased revenue and flag up the club as an attractive investment opportunity to overseas billionaire investors in the future. In a Premier League era of ruthless global ambition, there can be no room left for rose-tinted nostalgia for the way things used to be.

Yes, there are many hurdles still to be overcome. The whole botched process for the stadium's legacy, with Newham council contributing a £40m ($58m, €51m) loan towards the refurbishment of the Olympic Stadium will rankle for some time to come.

The loss of the pre-match atmosphere down Green Street will be hard to recreate in Stratford's sterile Westfield shopping centre. Hardest of all will be trying to recreate the same febrile atmosphere at Upton Park in a stadium almost twice the size.

But I'm confident it can work. As for those fans at the Boleyn who might try and nick their seats - it's not the seats that make the stadium, it's the supporters who sit on them.

The club have already sold out over 50,000 season tickets for next season, proving not only that the fan base is strong enough to fill the 60,00 capacity stadium, but that our season ticket supporter base is the largest in London, bigger than those at Arsenal, Tottenham and Chelsea.

This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for West Ham to grow their fan base out from the traditional East End to Essex and become a club that represents all of east London and the south east. The achievements of the past will never be forgotten, but we have a chance now to forge a brave new future, one that I can't wait to see unfold. West Ham's time at the Boleyn may be over, but I'll be forever blowing bubbles.